How Amazon is using less, doing more, and investing where it counts—at scale.
Amazon’s operations span nearly every inch of the globe (and sometimes space). Offices, warehouses, data centers, and delivery systems across dozens of countries require a significant amount of energy to allow them to deliver for customers. Amazon doesn’t take that lightly, which is why they’re applying the same inventiveness that drives their business to work toward operating among the most efficient infrastructure in the world. These efforts are in service of The Climate Pledge, our goal to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.
Amazon believes transitioning to carbon-free energy is one of the most consequential challenges of our time—and one of the greatest opportunities to innovate and build something better. Their approach starts with a simple conviction: no single technology, region, or solution will get us there. So they invest across the spectrum—wind, solar, hydroelectric, geothermal, nuclear, and battery storage—and direct investment where it can have the most impact. They don’t have a perfect roadmap. But believe that acting boldly, while being honest about what they’re still learning, is better than waiting on the sidelines.
Optimize. Use less. Do more.
The best way to reduce emissions is to use less energy in the first place. That’s why optimization comes first—before they add a single megawatt-hour of new electricity generation, they work to make every megawatt-hour they use go further.
Amazon is constantly re-evaluating how their data centers operate and determining ways to help them run more efficiently. One way they measure this is Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE). In 2025, Amazon data centers achieved a PUE of 1.14, better than the public cloud industry average and on-premises enterprise infrastructure. AWS custom Graviton chips use up to 60% less energy than comparable instances for the same performance, and their newest data center design strives to move just enough air through servers to keep them from overheating, while using the lowest amount of energy and water to do that. They aim to build with lower-carbon concrete and steel whenever possible, run AI-powered monitoring tools designed to catch waste before it accumulates, and they’re starting to transition backup generators to fuels like hydro-treated vegetable oil, which can reduce lifecycle emissions by up to 90% compared to fossil diesel.
Amazon’s delivery fleet is undergoing a similar transformation. They’ve deployed more than 52,000 electric delivery vans across the U.S., Europe, and India, putting them over halfway toward their goal of 100,000 electric vans on the road by 2030. In 2025 alone, those vehicles delivered more than 2.3 billion packages globally. It’s one of the easiest ways their customers can see progress in action—and a reminder that decarbonization isn’t just about the grid. It’s about every mile, route, and package that reaches your door.
They also know that optimization doesn’t happen in a straight line. As demand for AI and cloud computing grows, so does the demand for energy. They don’t shy away from that tension—it’s why optimizing for efficiency isn’t a one-time initiative. It’s a discipline they have to keep sharpening, year after year.
Generate. Invest where it matters most.
Using less energy matters, but it’s not enough on its own. Optimization is only one part of the picture—they also need to invest in carbon-free energy at scale.
Since 2020, Amazon has been one of the world’s largest corporate purchasers of carbon-free energy, according to BloombergNEF. They operate more than 700 carbon-free energy projects across 30 countries, generating 42 gigawatts of capacity—enough to power over 12 million U.S. homes.
Those numbers are meaningful, especially since they use an emissions-first approach: Rather than matching energy consumption globally, they direct investments to the grids that need them most—ones primarily powered by fossil fuels, where a single renewable project can avoid dozens of times more emissions than the same project built in an already-clean grid. In India alone, their renewable projects have the potential to avoid 55 times more carbon annually than the equivalent capacity in Sweden.
Methodologies are still maturing across the industry, but they’re pushing themselves to measure more than just emissions. They want to understand the full range of benefits that come from our carbon-free energy investments, so they’re considering the potential health, biodiversity, and socioeconomic benefits of Amazon’s carbon-free energy portfolio. It’s part of considering more than megawatts as they track progress and capture the real-world difference these investments can make for the communities and ecosystems around them.
The next frontier goes beyond renewables. They’re growing Amazon’s carbon-free energy portfolio with nuclear power. Through landmark investments in small modular reactor (SMR) technology—with Energy Northwest in Washington State and through our $500 million equity stake in X-energy—they are helping bring the next generation of nuclear energy to commercial scale, aiming for more than five gigawatts of new nuclear capacity by 2039. These promising technologies haven’t been proven at a commercial scale yet, but that’s why they’re investing now; waiting for certainty can mean waiting too long.
Transform. Push the whole system forward.
Amazon is investing in infrastructure that makes carbon-free energy reliable and accessible for everyone because a more efficient grid doesn’t just benefit Amazon—it can benefit every community, home, hospital, school, and business connected to it.
Amazon advocates for the transmission upgrades, interconnection reforms, and policies that allow carbon-free energy to connect quickly and flow freely. Interconnection timelines mean projects that could be operational within 18 months can take up to five years. These are systematic challenges that no single company can solve, and they are actively working to address them. Amazon collaborates with utilities, grid operators, and policymakers across the communities where they operate—all while paying the full cost of the energy and infrastructure our operations require, so communities don’t bear that burden.
They have also helped pave the way in new regions. In South Africa, for example, they negotiated the regulatory structures that enabled the country’s first corporate renewable energy agreement, and made those structures available to any company interested in replicating such an agreement. In Poland, their investments have directly supported the government’s goal of increasing renewable energy on the grid.
The economic impact is real. Amazon’s carbon-free energy projects have stimulated more than $12 billion in estimated economic investment globally since 2014, supporting tens of thousands of jobs in communities across Virginia, Ohio, Oregon, and beyond. They co-founded the Emissions First Partnership with General Motors, Intel, Meta, and Rivian to advance carbon accounting standards that measure real-world impact. And over 650 companies have joined us in working toward the goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2040 through The Climate Pledge.
Ultimately, their approach is grounded in accountability to their climate goals, to the communities where they operate, and to an honest accounting of their progress. They measure that progress by impact—on emissions, on communities, and on the shared energy future they are helping to build.
Learn more about Amazon’s carbon-free energy progress.
Sign up for our monthly newsletter to get Amazon sustainability updates sent directly to your inbox.
